Mist Battle, Checker Face, Chrome Dokuro
Hi, I'm a new fan, got into the series around 4 months ago-- yeah, kind of late, I know! Anyway, just sharing some of my more interesting KHR-related blog posts! :)
30-Day Katekyo Hitman Reborn Challenge
Kinda late to be jumping into the bandwagon, but I really want to do this!
It’s definitely the Mist Ring Battle, particularly the one between Mukuro and Mammon. No matter how many times I watch it, I always end up with my mouth dropping open in awe.
Mukuro is scary, isn’t he? He appears quite harmless at first, and then BOOM! he takes you apart- with lotus flowers, of all things! Then he turns your pet against you, pushes you to fall into an endless hole, and makes you explode to bits by force-feeding you his body in gooey form.
What’s more, he’s smiling sexily the whole while, as if it was all nothing but entertainment to him.
--
GIFs made by me using Photoshop CS5. I heard there are programs that can convert video to GIF, but I don’t have such a thing, so I use screenshots. Just imagine how frustrated I was when, after 30 or so pictures, I realized I had somehow screwed up in positioning on the Paint canvas so around a fourth of the image couldn’t be seen! :/
It took me a while to decide, but I’ve finally made my choice. This dubious title goes to Checker Face, also known as Kawahira おじさん. (Yeah, I copy-pasted those characters for ojisan from the Internet.)
His assistant Wonomichi and Kokuyo’s Birds tie as the close second. I was never impressed with Wonomichi and tended to skip all the distracting ho-ho’s in his dialogue.
And as for Birds, well, I always can't help a disgusted face when I think of him slurping his nosebleed.
In the end though, I realized that my least favorite male character is still Checker Face, because he proved to be the most anticlimactic part of the whole KHR storyline.
All the chapters in the Curse of the Rainbow Arc built him up to be a mysterious and fearsome enemy, so I was expecting him to be the epic final boss. When he revealed himself to be Kawahira, I was blown away.
I told myself, “Awesome! That was so unexpected, and now we get to know about this whole Hell Ring business and what it has to do with the Tri ni Sette. Akira Amano didn’t conveniently scrap Kawahira’s character and all those other concepts, after all!”
But my excitement was short-lived, because not only did the explanation of the Tri ni Sette seem like something pulled out of the ass, Checker Face turns out to be a good person and too unconvincingly willing to cooperate in carrying out Tsuna’s plan.
I never got the battle I so looked forward to. I never even got to see Checker Face’s powers or any explanation to the Hell Rings. And worst of all, I got a rushed and sappy ending to an arc that I thought would see KHR rising back to the top.
So, yeah, for being such an epic let-down, I like Checker Face the least from among the multitude of characters in the KHR universe.
Also, he’s quite stupid, isn’t he? It took No-Good Tsuna a couple of days to come up with a solution to a problem that Checker Face had been having for several generations.
And he claims to be part of a superior race?
Chrome Dokuro easily wins my vote for most awesome female character, and that is not just because she has been shown to have some significant use outside of the kitchen.
Seriously, as much as I love KHR, I sometimes can’t suppress a cringe when I see the lowly depiction of women in the series. To think that the mangaka is a woman herself… :/
Anyway, back to the topic at hand.
Chrome is rather underutilized in the manga for someone who is supposed to be part of the main cast. I sometimes have the impression that Kyoko gets more spotlight for being Tsuna’s love interest than Chrome for being one-half of the Vongola Mist Guardian.
That said, I don’t really have that much material from canon to actually squeal over and rave about. However, and this is what I like most about Chrome’s character, the few pieces that we do have of her puzzle certainly paint a portrait that is complex and exciting.
An unwanted child, Nagi is left to die by uncaring parents after she gets hit by a car while saving a stray cat. She loses vital organs, but is given a second life through illusion by a criminal who happens to come across her existence, presumably while walking the Samsara. Reborn as Chrome Dokuro, an anagram of her savior, she lives his life for him while his real self lies in prison.
Chrome is a wallflower, reluctant to accept kindness from others. She is a budding talent, but insecure about her own skills and purpose.
Yet despite being a wraith and proving to be frail more often than not, Chrome’s resolve burns bright and unyielding when it comes to protecting what she loves.
Current Chrome by herself is interesting enough, but we are given more to ponder on when the manga gives us a tease of the woman she would become ten years into the future.
Beautiful, mysterious, sexy. A lot more confident, too, if M.M.’s words to the younger Chrome were any indication- “It’s just as Ken said, you always have that pitiful look about you.” I interpreted that line as M.M. seeing the insecure Chrome for the first time, as the mature Chrome she had met in their timeline does not have the “pitiful look” that Ken describes.
What happened in those ten years to rid Chrome of her “pitiful look”? Will the Chrome of this timeline also grow into that woman who jumps off 5-storey buildings in a show of reckless daring in the face of danger?
Chrome may be sparse in the manga, but the scraps of her that we do get provide such juicy material for the imagination to work on. The complexities of her personality, as well as the elusive nature of her relationship with Mukuro and the other characters- the could-be’s and might-be’s of those prove just as flavorful as canon itself.
In short, Chrome Dokuro may just be a fanworker’s ideal canvas. And that is why I love her.
30-Day Katekyo Hitman Reborn Challenge
Kinda late to be jumping into the bandwagon, but I really want to do this!
It’s definitely the Mist Ring Battle, particularly the one between Mukuro and Mammon. No matter how many times I watch it, I always end up with my mouth dropping open in awe.
Mukuro is scary, isn’t he? He appears quite harmless at first, and then BOOM! he takes you apart- with lotus flowers, of all things! Then he turns your pet against you, pushes you to fall into an endless hole, and makes you explode to bits by force-feeding you his body in gooey form.
What’s more, he’s smiling sexily the whole while, as if it was all nothing but entertainment to him.
--
GIFs made by me using Photoshop CS5. I heard there are programs that can convert video to GIF, but I don’t have such a thing, so I use screenshots. Just imagine how frustrated I was when, after 30 or so pictures, I realized I had somehow screwed up in positioning on the Paint canvas so around a fourth of the image couldn’t be seen! :/
It took me a while to decide, but I’ve finally made my choice. This dubious title goes to Checker Face, also known as Kawahira おじさん. (Yeah, I copy-pasted those characters for ojisan from the Internet.)
His assistant Wonomichi and Kokuyo’s Birds tie as the close second. I was never impressed with Wonomichi and tended to skip all the distracting ho-ho’s in his dialogue.
And as for Birds, well, I always can't help a disgusted face when I think of him slurping his nosebleed.
In the end though, I realized that my least favorite male character is still Checker Face, because he proved to be the most anticlimactic part of the whole KHR storyline.
All the chapters in the Curse of the Rainbow Arc built him up to be a mysterious and fearsome enemy, so I was expecting him to be the epic final boss. When he revealed himself to be Kawahira, I was blown away.
I told myself, “Awesome! That was so unexpected, and now we get to know about this whole Hell Ring business and what it has to do with the Tri ni Sette. Akira Amano didn’t conveniently scrap Kawahira’s character and all those other concepts, after all!”
But my excitement was short-lived, because not only did the explanation of the Tri ni Sette seem like something pulled out of the ass, Checker Face turns out to be a good person and too unconvincingly willing to cooperate in carrying out Tsuna’s plan.
I never got the battle I so looked forward to. I never even got to see Checker Face’s powers or any explanation to the Hell Rings. And worst of all, I got a rushed and sappy ending to an arc that I thought would see KHR rising back to the top.
So, yeah, for being such an epic let-down, I like Checker Face the least from among the multitude of characters in the KHR universe.
Also, he’s quite stupid, isn’t he? It took No-Good Tsuna a couple of days to come up with a solution to a problem that Checker Face had been having for several generations.
And he claims to be part of a superior race?
Chrome Dokuro easily wins my vote for most awesome female character, and that is not just because she has been shown to have some significant use outside of the kitchen.
Seriously, as much as I love KHR, I sometimes can’t suppress a cringe when I see the lowly depiction of women in the series. To think that the mangaka is a woman herself… :/
Anyway, back to the topic at hand.
Chrome is rather underutilized in the manga for someone who is supposed to be part of the main cast. I sometimes have the impression that Kyoko gets more spotlight for being Tsuna’s love interest than Chrome for being one-half of the Vongola Mist Guardian.
That said, I don’t really have that much material from canon to actually squeal over and rave about. However, and this is what I like most about Chrome’s character, the few pieces that we do have of her puzzle certainly paint a portrait that is complex and exciting.
An unwanted child, Nagi is left to die by uncaring parents after she gets hit by a car while saving a stray cat. She loses vital organs, but is given a second life through illusion by a criminal who happens to come across her existence, presumably while walking the Samsara. Reborn as Chrome Dokuro, an anagram of her savior, she lives his life for him while his real self lies in prison.
Chrome is a wallflower, reluctant to accept kindness from others. She is a budding talent, but insecure about her own skills and purpose.
Yet despite being a wraith and proving to be frail more often than not, Chrome’s resolve burns bright and unyielding when it comes to protecting what she loves.
Current Chrome by herself is interesting enough, but we are given more to ponder on when the manga gives us a tease of the woman she would become ten years into the future.
Beautiful, mysterious, sexy. A lot more confident, too, if M.M.’s words to the younger Chrome were any indication- “It’s just as Ken said, you always have that pitiful look about you.” I interpreted that line as M.M. seeing the insecure Chrome for the first time, as the mature Chrome she had met in their timeline does not have the “pitiful look” that Ken describes.
What happened in those ten years to rid Chrome of her “pitiful look”? Will the Chrome of this timeline also grow into that woman who jumps off 5-storey buildings in a show of reckless daring in the face of danger?
Chrome may be sparse in the manga, but the scraps of her that we do get provide such juicy material for the imagination to work on. The complexities of her personality, as well as the elusive nature of her relationship with Mukuro and the other characters- the could-be’s and might-be’s of those prove just as flavorful as canon itself.
In short, Chrome Dokuro may just be a fanworker’s ideal canvas. And that is why I love her.